15+ actors who were paid the most to say the least in Hollywood

Some screenplays require actors to go above and beyond when it comes to delivering dialogue. The early films of Woody Allen or just about any episode of TV’s “Gilmore Girls” feature characters rattling off lines at a mile a minute, hardly stopping to take a breath.

Yet other movies require actors to rely less on dialogue and more on subtle, physical tools to portray their characters. Leonardo DiCaprio’s role as Hugh Glass in 2015’s “The Revenant” is one such example. With very few lines of speech, he managed to carry the two-and-a-half-hour film, and win an Oscar in the process.

Saying little, however, does not prevent many of today’s most high-profile acting talent from collecting massive amounts of money. In some cases, Hollywood has doled out as much as $10,000 per word to its favored actors.

To determine the actors getting paid the most per word, 24/7 Wall Street reviewed salary data and word counts for about 2,000 movies. Actors were ranked by the ratio of their total earnings to the number of words of dialogue written for their character in a given screenplay.

20. Angelina Jolie as Jane Smith

Movie: “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” (2005)

Total pay: $6,850 per word

Word count: 1,794

IMDb user rating: 6.5/10

19. Jennifer Aniston as Dr. Julia Harris

Movie: “Horrible Bosses” (2011)

Total pay: $7,715 per word

Word count: 856

IMDb user rating: 6.9/10

18. Johnny Depp as Will Caster

Movie: “Transcendence” (2014)

Total pay: $10,633 per word

Word count: 1,907

IMDb user rating: 6.3/10

17. Brad Pitt as Joe Black

Movie: “Meet Joe Black” (1998)

Total pay: $12,204 per word

Word count: 1,434

IMDb user rating: 7.2/10

16. Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne

Movie: “Batman” (1989)

Total pay: $12,243 per word

Word count: 793

IMDb user rating: 7.6/10

15. Eddie Murphy as Slide

Movie: “Tower Heist” (2011)

Total pay: $12,759 per word

Word count: 647

IMDb user rating: 6.2/10

14. Ryan Gosling as Driver

Movie: “Drive” (2011)

Total pay: $13,797 per word

Word count: 116

IMDb user rating: 7.8/10

13. Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken

Movie: “Escape from L.A.” (1996)

Total pay: $14,216 per word

Word count: 1,076

IMDb user rating: 5.7/10

12. Keanu Reeves as Neo

Movie: “The Matrix” (1999)

Total pay: $14,451 per word

Word count: 995

IMDb user rating: 8.7/10

11. Sean Connery as John Patrick Mason

Movie: “The Rock” (1996)

Total pay: $14,557 per word

Word count: 1,261

IMDb user rating: 7.4/10

10. Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands

Movie: “Edward Scissorhands” (1990)

Total pay: $14,889 per word

Word count: 185

IMDb user rating: 7.9/10

9. Will Smith as Captain Steven Hiller

Movie: “Independence Day” (1996)

Total pay: $14,969 per word

Word count: 509

IMDb user rating: 7.0/10

8. Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass

Movie: “The Revenant” (2015)

Total pay: $17,422 per word

Word count: 1,148

IMDb user rating: 8.0/10

7. Johnny Depp as Frank Tupelo

Movie: “The Tourist” (2010)

Total pay: $19,209 per word

Word count: 1,146

IMDb user rating: 6.0/10

6. Angelina Jolie as Elise Clifton-Ward

Movie: “The Tourist” (2010)

Total pay: $20,934 per word

Word count: 999

IMDb user rating: 6.0/10

5. Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley

Movie: “Alien: Resurrection” (1997)

Total pay: $23,128 per word

Word count: 712

IMDb user rating: 6.2/10

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator

Movie: “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991)

Total pay: $30,687 per word

Word count: 861

IMDb user rating: 8.5/10

3. Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter

Movie: “Alice in Wonderland” (2010)

Total pay: $66,606 per word

Word count: 661

IMDb user rating: 6.5/10

2. Keanu Reeves as Neo

Movie: “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003), “The Matrix Revolutions” (2003)

Total pay: $159,393 per word

Word count: 638

IMDb user rating: 7.2/10, 6.7/10

1. Jack Nicholson as the Joker

Movie: “Batman” (1989)

Total pay: $166,101 per word

Word count: 585

IMDb user rating: 7.6/10

Methodology

To determine the actors getting paid the most per word, 24/7 Wall Street reviewed salary data and word counts for approximately 2,000 movies. Actors were ranked by the ratio of their total earnings to the number of words of dialogue written for their character or characters in a given screenplay. Salary figures came from “George Lucas’s Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success” by Alex Ben Block and Lucy Autrey Wilson, as well as additional sources, and were adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Data on word count came from “The Largest Ever Analysis of Film Dialogue by Gender,” a project by Hannah Anderson and Matt Daniels hosted on the website The Pudding, as well as analysis by 24/7 Wall Street. Word counts reflect dialogue in a film’s screenplay and may not be representative of the actual word count in a film’s theatrical version. Only roles in which actors speak fewer than 2,000 words were considered.

Actors for whom reliable salary and word count data could not be located were not considered. As a result, actors who would have likely made the list – Matt Damon for the title role in 2016’s “Jason Bourne,” Henry Cavill for the role of Superman in 2016’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” and Scarlett Johansson for the role of the Female in 2013’s “Under the Skin” – were excluded.